Saturday, while I was signing autographs after the podium ceremony, I met a young Fort Collins girl who could not stop talking about how she got hit in the head with the flowers another racer had thrown from the podium. I asked, "Is that like a wedding? Instead of the next bride, do you get to be the next bike racer?" Well, the girl didn't get my joke (although her mom did), but if I am right and that girl indeed becomes one of us, I just hope that she gets the chance to experience a weekend like we just did at the inaugural women's USA Pro Challenge.

While it is necessary to have financial support and generous race promoters in order to advance the cause of women's cycling, there is another resource that also must be cultivated - and that is the dedication of the riders themselves. As an athlete, it is easy to start wondering about the age-old "tree falls in a forest" adage. We often finish races hearing single hands clapping at the finish line - as an athlete, I confess it is sometimes challenging to keep up the motivation to sacrifice so many other opportunities when you aren't sure that you are doing something that anyone cares about.

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I think I speak for the entire women's field when I say that the support we all felt each time we climbed the hill on our circuit Sunday in Golden alone is sufficient to provide motivation for maybe another 10 years of racing. At the post-race press conference, overall winner Kristin Armstrong, currently pursuing her second comeback in pursuit of competing at the 2016 Olympic Games, said that regardless of the overall outcome of her return to racing, the experience of participating at the USA Pro Challenge alone justified the effort.

Personally, the support I have felt from my home community, and my delight at the chance to finally compete in my beloved Rocky Mountains, has made this one of the greatest weekends of my entire racing career. As wonderful as it has been, what we need to do now is ensure that it is not just a single great weekend - but rather the beginning of something that endures. Not all women's races that start auspiciously make it beyond their first year, so despite this auspicious start, without care this experience could easily fade away.

As a first edition of the competition, we could have hardly asked for more, but now the work is to grow the race - perhaps from three days in 2015 to the full seven with the men. Let us make sure the race is still here by the time my little friend with the flowers is standing on her first podium.

Mara Abbott is a Boulder native, Daily Camera columnist and a professional cyclist who competed in the USA Pro Challenge this weekend.

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